Advert for Nonsuch Tobacco

Smoking in the Victorian period was the height of fashion. Tobacco was readily available in a variety of forms including pipe tobacco, snuff, cigars, and - by the end of the century - prerolled cigarettes. The annual consumption of tobacco before the mid-1800s was about 2lbs (4 kilos) per person, but by the 1890s people were smoking more than twice that amount. It was still not thought polite for women to smoke at this time, and gentlemen would often have to retire to a ‘smoking room’ after dinner.